Congo-Brazzaville cleared to return to international football
Congo-Brazzaville are bottom of their qualifying group for the 2026 Fifa World Cup [Getty Images]
Fifa has lifted the suspension of Congo-Brazzaville from international football after several conditions were met.
The sanction was imposed in February because of third-party interference in the affairs of the country's football association (Fecofoot).
Advertisement
At the time, Fifa said a "particularly serious situation" of undue influence constituted "a clear violation of Fecofoot's obligations" under the world governing body's statutes.
It led to the postponement of Congo's 2026 Fifa World Cup qualifiers against Tanzania and Zambia, which were scheduled to be held in March.
The conditions to lift the suspension included the return of full control of Fecofoot's headquarters and the association's other facilities to the Fecofoot executive committee.
It is yet to be announced if the two suspended World Cup qualifiers will be rearranged.
The final four games of the group campaign are scheduled to take place in September and October, with African play-offs then due to be played in November.

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


USA Today
36 minutes ago
- USA Today
Diversity is not what's dragging down U.S. men's national team. Data proves it
Whatever is wrong with the U.S. men's national team, and pull up a chair because there's lots to discuss, diversity isn't it. That's not just an aspirational statement. There are studies to prove it. In fact, researchers who've looked at both club and national teams across the world recently found diversity actually made squads better. "Previous research, they found a negative impact, not because of the diversity itself but how to put the team together. When you merge several players from different countries with different language, you create a barrier that makes it, at some extent, difficult to perform," said Thadeu Gasparetto, author of a paper published earlier this month titled "Multicultural teams: Does national diversity associate with performance in professional soccer?" "More recent research is showing pretty much the opposite, where the diversity provides a set of different skills … different codes that tends to be positive.' With less than a year until the World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico, which U.S. Soccer officials hope will be as transformative for the game as the 1994 tournament was, the "golden generation' of the U.S. men's national team is struggling. To put it nicely. Most of their top players, led by Christian Pulisic, are playing in Europe. Several on top teams, no less. Their coach is Mauricio Pochettino, who took Tottenham to the Champions League final. Yet the USMNT skidded into the Concacaf Gold Cup on a four-game losing streak, its longest since 2007. Then team reached the quarterfinals of the tournament, but Sunday's game against Costa Rica will be the first real test. As players, fans and pundits look for answers, former USMNT player and pot stirrer extraordinaire Alexi Lalas blamed the team's diversity. In addition to players from across the United States, the USMNT — like many other national teams — has multiple players who were born or raised overseas. "I've argued that the homogeneous nature of some other countries and cultures, just in population in terms of the size, are much more manageable and there's a collective understanding and, more importantly, an agreement in, 'This is how we're going to play,'' said Lalas, who makes no secret of his willingness to be a right-wing media provocateur. 'But getting 11 men to represent this great country of 350 million people and all be on the same page, that is very, very difficult.' Except it's really not. And there is both data, and anecdotal evidence, to prove it. Gasparetto examined six professional leagues in Europe — England, Belgium, Germany, Cyprus, Latvia and the Netherlands — between the 2015-16 and 2020-21 seasons and found that each foreign player on a team correlated with a 0.42% increase in win percentage. 'It's much more about how well or how qualified the players are rather than where he or she's from,' Gasparetto said. His findings are similar to those in a study by Michel Beine, Silvia Peracchi and Skerdilajda Zanaj that looked at ancestral diversity and its impact on a national team's performance. "Ancestral diversity and performance: Evidence from football data," published in the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization in September 2023, found ethnic diversity can lead to an additional goal scored per game. 'The idea is, basically, that more genetic diversity is going to allow more complementary skills between players,' Beine said. 'Soccer is a game in which complementary skills is very important because you have different positions and these different positions, they require different type of skills. … These complementarities, these different type of skills are going to be beneficial for the team.' Look at France. Les Bleus won the men's World Cup in 2018 and were runners-up in 2022 with a team that was a melting pot. In addition to players whose parents and grandparents and great-grandparents and — you get the idea — were born in France, about half the team was born in Africa or the French Caribbean, or had parents who were. England, much to the country's consternation, endured decades of frustration after winning the World Cup in 1968. But it has reached the final at the last two European Championship and got to the semifinals of the 2018 World Cup with a multiracial team. Belgium had its best finish ever at the World Cup in 2018, third place, with a team that reflected the influence of immigration to that country in the 1950s and 1960s. Conversely, teams that are homogenous — Iceland, for example, or Japan — don't fare as well. 'This mixing, in terms of skills, in terms of genetic endowment, we show in the statistical analysis that, over time, countries benefited from immigration flows and diverse immigration flows. … They improved their soccer performances,' Beine said. 'On the contrary, you have countries who had very little immigration flows and who have kept quite a homogeneous population … maybe they have less benefited from this.' Soccer is a global game — and not only because it's played everywhere in the world. Players routinely move from country to country in their club careers, and that is likely to have far more influence than the country in which they were born or the neighborhood in which they grew up. Lionel Messi was born in Argentina, moved to Spain at 13 and spent two decades at Barcelona before going to France to play for Paris Saint-Germain. Now he's in the United States, playing for Inter Miami. Do you really think him being from Rosario has more of an impact on Argentina's national team than what he learned at Barcelona? "The evidence is very clear that diversity is something that can be beneficial. And it is a little bit overlooked by people,' Beine said. 'I think that sometimes people are not looking at the evidence. Or they are closing their eyes on what is really obvious.' And that is that. The USMNT, much like the country it represents, is better for its diversity. Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
PSG vs Inter Miami – Predicted lineup and team news
PSG face Inter Miami in the FIFA World Cup Round of 16 this evening. The Champions League winners will start as clear favourites against Inter Miami, as the Parisians bid for a place in the last eight. Advertisement PSG sealed progress to the knockout rounds as group winners, despite a shock setback against Botafogo in their second fixture. Wins over Atletico Madrid and Seattle Sounders saw PSG top a tight group on goal difference. Inter Miami finished as runners-up to Palmeiras in Group A. Tonight's contest will see a reunion, with Herons talisman Lionel Messi faces his former team in competitive action. PSG vs Inter Miami – Predicted lineup and team news PSG team news Ousmane Dembele is yet to appear in the tournament for PSG as the Frenchman continues to nurse a hamstring injury. Luis Enrique will hope his side's leading scorer can return to the squad this evening. Advertisement The French champions have an otherwise strong squad to choose from. Bradley Barcola or Goncalo Ramos are expected to replace Dembele in the starting side. PSG this week made a classy gesture to pay Barcola's outstanding transfer fee upfront. The arrangement was made to aid Ligue 1 rivals Lyon who are facing financial difficulties. PSG predicted lineup Paris Saint-Germain predicted XI: Donnarumma; Hakimi, Marquinhos, Pacho, Mendes; Ruiz, Vitinha, Neves; Kvaratskhelia, Barcola, Doue. When is PSG vs Inter Miami? PSG face Inter Miami in the Club World Cup Round of 16 on Sunday 29th June 2025. Kick-off in Atlanta is 5pm BST. What TV channel is PSG vs Inter Miami? UK fans can stream all Club World Cup fixtures via Advertisement this summer/ Read – Every tournament England has ever won as Young Lions retain U21 Euros title See more – Iconic Performances: Messi's four-goal demolition of Arsenal Follow The Football Faithful on Social Media: Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube | TikTok
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Chelsea beat Benfica in comical Club World Cup game
Chelsea beat Benfica 4-1 after extra time in the Round of 16 of the Club World Cup but despite the high stakes, the game was overshadowed by events off the field. It has been a familiar story in this competition. Fan attendances have been disappointingly low for FIFA. But they would have been hoping that knockout games, especially ones involving huge global teams such as Chelsea, may have changed the tune. Advertisement The Bank of America stadium holds 74,867 fans, but the official attendance was less than a third of that. And the major event of the game, that occurred in the 85th minute, was a stoppage due to weather conditions that lasted 106 minutes. Yes that's correct. The stoppage lasted longer than the game itself. Chelsea were minutes away from a 1-0 win at that point, and what happened when play resumed was unimaginable. Events on the field got off to a quick start, despite the 32 degree temperature. Chelsea controlled early possession, and had a brilliant chance to open the scoring in the 19th minute via the ever-dangerous Marc Cucurella, but he saw his curled effort headed off the line by Antonio Silva, who was brilliant throughout. Advertisement The Spaniard then came close again in the 38th minute. It's an interesting position for Enzo Maresca, on one hand he must be delighted with how threatening the full-back is, but on the other it must be slightly concerning that he genuinely seems one of the most likely players to score for Chelsea. He draws comparison to former Blues player Marcos Alonso, also a marauding Spanish full-back who was a constant threat for Chelsea over the years. The second period was largely stale, and after Chelsea failed to capitalise on their first half dominance and numerous chances, they struggled after the break. But the three minutes between the 61st-64th had a huge impact on the game, and possibly Chelsea's next…. Advertisement Caicedo was booked, meaning he will miss the quarter-final, and just moments later Reece James broke the deadlock via a very intelligent free-kick. 25-yards out, hugging the left touch-line, it seemed a nothing opportunity for a standard cross into the box, but James had other plans. He took it quickly and shot powerfully, catching Anatoliy Trubin completely unaware. The old adage goes that you are most vulnerable straight after scoring, and that proved true as moments later Vangelis Pavlidis went clean through and was almost one-on-one with Rob Sanchez, but for some great defending from Benoit Badiashile. Then the weather warning suspended play in the 85th minute. And we had to wait just under two hours for proceedings to resume…. Advertisement Despite many thinking it would just be an obligatory five minutes of football that had to be finished off, it became much more than that. Malo Gusto gave away a penalty for handball, which Angel Di Maria, who had been completely anonymous to that point, dispatched cooly. Extra-time began, and within two minutes Gianluca Prestianni, who only came on for Benica in the 70th minute, was sent off for a second yellow. By now this game felt farcical, and, frankly, never-ending. It felt as though players and fans alike just wanted to see a conclusion. And a conclusion came shortly, when in the second period of extra time, Caicedo shot across goal, the keeper spilled it, and Christopher Nkunku bundled in the rebound. Advertisement The Frenchman had a very tough last season, and the emotion on his face was clear to see. Even Maresca ran onto the pitch to celebrate with the team, which he has never done before. But the goals didn't stop there, as Pedro Neto and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall added one each to make the final score 4-1. Chelsea will now play Palmeiras in Philadelphia on Saturday, and as was evident from the celebrations after Nkunku's goal, they clearly care about winning this competition. Watch the FIFA Club World Cup | June 14 – July 13 | Every Game | Free | #FIFACWC#TakeItToTheWorld